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      <a href="../../../index.html">Sigil User Guide
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    0.7.2

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  <h2 id="about_epub" class="calibre5">About EPUB</h2>

  <p class="calibre1">The EPUB (electronic publication) format is one of the most popular file formats for ebooks. It is an open and freely available standard that can be used by anyone.</p>

  <p class="calibre1">An EPUB ebook is simply a file containing several other files stored together using the common zip format. These files include your words, images, Table of Contents, stylesheets, fonts and details about your book like author or title. EPUB’s standard format means your book can be read on many ereaders or converted easily to other ereaders not using EPUB.</p>

  <p class="calibre1">Your EPUB stores your words and text in the book using the HTML format (Hyper Text Markup Language – the same code used by web pages to display text and images). This just means that the files contain your text along with markup codes and tags (like <span class="example">&lt;h1&gt;</span> or <span class="example">&lt;p&gt;</span>) which tell ereaders how to format and display the text – some words could be bold or italic, others could be a paragraph or a heading, etc.</p>

  <p class="calibre1">In addition to HTML tags to control or style the layout, EPUB books typically make use of stylesheets to help organise the use of styles used by the HTML files. A stylesheet is another file in the EPUB that contains a list of HTML tags along with instructions on how to display any text using that tag, e.g. <span class="example">&lt;h1&gt;</span> (heading level 1) should be larger and centered. This allows you to separate the content of your book from its layout and allows you to easily adjust the look of the EPUB.</p>

  <p class="calibre1">Of course, when anyone actually reads an EPUB they don’t see all these HTML files or stylesheets. The ereader just displays the text and images like a normal book – as close as it can to the formatting you defined, even if there are thousands of pages or files.</p>

  <p class="calibre1">You don’t have to understand all the details of the EPUB format or understand HTML formatting codes to start using Sigil. However, if you spend any time with Sigil you will soon need to become familiar with these areas in order to get the most out of the advanced features of Sigil, and, ultimately, to achieve the design you want.</p>

  <div class="tip">
    <p class="tiptext">Text files are actually stored in XHTML format (an XML compliant version of HTML), but to make the guide easier to read we’ll use HTML to refer to either HTML or XHTML.</p>
  </div>

  <p class="calibre1">Sigil is designed to work with version 2 of the EPUB standard, with support for some additional features found in EPUB 3.</p>

  <div class="tip">
    <p class="tiptext">Even though Sigil is designed to work with EPUB files, the EPUB format can easily be converted to other ebook formats like mobi.</p>
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  <p class="calibre1">To learn more about HTML you can read various online guides, including:</p>

  <ul class="calibre3">
    <li class="calibre4"><a href="http://www.w3schools.com/html/">W3Schools HTML Guide</a></li>
  </ul>

  <p class="calibre1">Help with on the EPUB format is available from EPUB users at MobileRead:</p>

  <ul class="calibre3">
    <li class="calibre4"><a href="http://www.mobileread.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=179">EPUB Forum @ MobileRead</a></li>
  </ul>

  <p class="calibre1">If you really want to dig into the details of the official EPUB standard on which Sigil is built you can read the original technical specifications:</p>

  <ul class="calibre3">
    <li class="calibre4">
      <a href="http://idpf.org/epub/201">Official EPUB 2.0.1 IDPF Standard</a>

      <ul class="calibre6">
        <li class="calibre4"><span class="listheading">OPS (Open Publication Structure):</span> The key specification which describes everything in an EPUB file.</li>

        <li class="calibre4"><span class="listheading">OPF (Open Packaging Format):</span> How the EPUB files relate to each other, metadata details (<span class="example">content.opf</span>).</li>

        <li class="calibre4"><span class="listheading">OCF (OEBPS Container Format):</span> How files are packaged into a <span class="example">.epub file.</span></li>
      </ul>
    </li>
  </ul>

  <div class="tip">
    <p class="tiptext">You can <a href="http://code.google.com/p/sigil/downloads/list">download the EPUB version of the Sigil User Guide</a>, which was created entirely in Sigil, and view it in Sigil to see an example of an EPUB ebook.</p>
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    <h2><a href="../../../index.html"> Table of contents</a></h2>
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      <a href="cover_picture.html">Cover</a>
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      <a href="titlepage.html">Title Page</a>
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      <a href="rights.html">Copyright</a>
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      <a href="introduction.html">Introduction</a>
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          <a href="whats_new.html">What’s New</a>
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          <a href="about_sigil.html">About Sigil</a>
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        <li>
          <a href="about_epub.html">About EPUB</a>
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      <a href="installation.html">Installation</a>
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      <a href="features.html">Features</a>
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          <a href="user_interface.html">User Interface</a>
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          <a href="preferences.html">Preferences</a>
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          <a href="opening_and_saving_files.html">Opening and Saving Files</a>
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          <a href="book_view.html">Book View</a>
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          <a href="code_view.html">Code View</a>
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          <a href="preview.html">Preview</a>
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          <a href="metadata.html">Metadata</a>
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          <a href="add_cover.html">Add Cover</a>
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          <a href="validation.html">Validation</a>
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          <a href="spellcheck.html">Spellcheck</a>
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          <a href="media_files.html">Images, Video, Audio</a>
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          <a href="special_characters.html">Special Characters</a>
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          <a href="splitting_and_merging.html">Splitting and Merging</a>
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          <a href="find_replace.html">Find &amp; Replace</a>
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          <a href="saved_searches.html">Saved Searches</a>
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          <a href="links.html">Links and IDs</a>
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          <a href="styles.html">Styles</a>
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          <a href="indexes.html">Indexes</a>
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          <a href="reports.html">Reports</a>
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          <a href="external_editors.html">External Editors</a>
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      <a href="tutorials.html">Tutorials</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_getting_started_with_epub.html">Getting Started With EPUB</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_convert_to_html.html">Prepare Your File For Sigil</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_load_file.html">Open Your File With Sigil</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_save.html">Save Your EPUB File</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_metadata.html">Add the Author and Title</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_add_cover.html">Add a Cover Image</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_split.html">Create Files For Each Chapter</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_mark_chapters.html">Identify Your Chapters</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_generate_toc.html">Generate A Table of Contents</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_links.html">Create Links and Notes</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_code_view.html">A Quick Introduction To Code View</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_spelling.html">Check For Spelling Mistakes</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_validate.html">Check For Errors In Your EPUB</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_find_replace.html">Edit With Find &amp; Replace</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_stylesheets.html">Use Stylesheets</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_embed_fonts.html">Include Custom Fonts</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_advanced_find.html">Advanced Find &amp; Replace – Regex</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_regex_reference.html">Regular Expression Reference</a>
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          <a href="tutorial_tips.html">Tips</a>
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      <a href="faq.html">FAQ</a>
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          <a href="faq.html#faq_common_questions">Common Questions</a>
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        <li>
          <a href="faq.html#faq_questions">Where to Get Help</a>
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          <a href="faq.html#faq_using_sigil">Using Sigil</a>
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        <li>
          <a href="faq.html#faq_formatting">Formatting and Styles</a>
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      <a href="contributing_to_sigil.html">Contributing to Sigil</a>
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